Killington 3-19-2016

We rolled out of borrowed beds in Albany around six and got on the road. I was excited to be getting back to Killington. The Beast wasn't my home mountain when I was a youngster but I spent a season working there in the nineties and really grew to love the place. Nowadays I look forward to getting there for two or three days a season. Killington never fails to excite. Wether helping a casual skier navigate around the place, skiing Bear with a fellow fanatic or lapping the Canyon Quad solo, I always come away satisfied

The K1 was already loading when we parked at Killington Base so my son and I booted up and hurried to the ticket window. We chose K-base because junior wanted to ride the gondola so I built my day's strategy around getting that out of the way before the line got too bad. My plan was to stay away from the base lodges and use the peripheral lifts with sorter lines.



Once we reached the top of the K1 I knew where I wanted to go. We head for Bear Trax, then Launch Pad and then Cruise Control, down to the bottom of the Needle's Eye Express quad. It was a good warm-up run. It was cold but there wasn't much exposed ice. Conditions were good, a hard base underneath and lots of re-frozen corn snow on top. Needle's Eye gets decent sun in the morning so it's a nice place to start on a cold morning. For my son it was a perfect place to challenge himself. Panic Button, right off the top of the lift, is nominally a Black Diamond but it's really not that difficult, just two semi-steep pitches at the top before it feeds into Lower Needle's Eye trail, a wide blue-rated bomber that's a blast for a high intermediate skier like my son. He loved it so we stuck around there a while.





To change things up we jumped on the Skyeship gondola at the mid-station and took Skylark  and Bittersweet down to the Superstar quad but my son was in love with Panic Button so we went back to Needle's Eye until lunch; there were still no lines there so I was happy too.




Post lunch plans started with the Snowdon triple. Again we skied right on; no line. I was delighted that as soon as my son spotted the Snowdon Poma he wanted to ride it. We did a few laps there and then skied down to the Snowdon quad. Mouse Trap (another nominally black diamond rated confidence builder) Chute and Bunny Buster kept us occupied there for a while; all skied well. There were some big jumps under the triple so we paused to watch a few kids showing off their skills. As the afternoon wore on, we shifted over to the NorthRidge Triple. We got there later in the day on purpose to give the sun enough time to soften things up. Upper East Fall skied just as nice as the rest of the mountain.






Soon I heard what I'd been expecting. My son was getting tired, ready to quit. No problem. I pointed him down Great Northern and told him to wait at the lodge. I was I the perfect spot to jump on either of my two favorite runs, Lower East Fall and Double Dipper. That's where I spent the rest of my day., lapping the Canyon quad. Still no lines. Both my trails were skiing great, lots of soft snow piled on either side near the trees. It was another great day that reminded me why Killington is so awesome. My home mountain is closed, the Catskills will soon be completely done for the year but the Beast marches on. I'll be back.

Great report.  I skied there today.  The Beast never disappoints.

K1, North Ridge, Snowdon Quad, Ramshead, Snowshed, Northbrook, Skyeship (2nd stage), and of course Superstar were open.  

Bear should've been open, but the Skye Peak Express was broken and likely grounded for the rest of the season (rope evac on Friday).  They didn't think it was worth running Bear Chair midweek when you couldn't ski most of the runs without taking 2 lifts and traversing.  I also wished the Canyon Quad was running in place of the North Ridge Triple so I could lap Cascade and Lower East Fall without riding the gondola.  My dad's knee was hurting and he had to minimize removal of equipment, so we had to avoid the gondolas for the most part.

Conditions were pretty good the whole day.  ROTD was Bittersweet off the Superstar lift.

My pictures are in the conditions thread.

How did we miss each other? We were there all day Saturday and Sunday. Nice weekend to be out.. Not too busy either.

I bet Snoloco had the place all to yourself today!

Hey, it's a big place but I thought the same thing when I saw your post in Conditions. Mount Superstar isn't quite as big as it was last year and I was a little disappointed they only had a few guns running over in the Snowshed area but I guess even killington runs out of budget eventually.  How long do you guys think they'll last this year?

Brownski wrote

 How long do you guys think they'll last this year?

This is the $64,000.00 question.  I'm curious to hear the answer as well.  

BTW, nice report Brownski.    

Early to mid May would be my guess.  I plan to ski there 2 more times this year.  In 2 weeks I'm going to an open house at The Clarkson School, where I might be going next year, and I'd be skiing Killington the day after.  I also plan to go there for one last trip sometime in April, likely when it's only the Superstar Lift open.